About Me
My name is Camilla, and I teach an oral English university class in a smallish town called Xiamen in Southern China. It is located right across the channel from Taiwan, and thus has some Taiwanese influences (oyster pancakes, anyone?). It is also a 10-hour bus ride from Hong Kong, somewhat convenient if I want to visit my relatives there, watch my uncle cook, and partake of some awesome dim sum.
Update: We recently moved from China back to California. We live on the Central Coast, a beyoo-tiful area of small towns, organic farms, farmers markets, and year round goodness, a few miles from wine country. You may have heard of San Luis Obispo and its famous Thursday night farmers market – we live somewhat near there. I am so excited to begin cooking in this vibrant area with all the fresh produce that is grown year round in this region. You can also expect profiles of farms and wineries that we visit on weekends near our area.
My culinary history ought to be exciting – I’m of Chinese descent and grew up eating Asian food, I lived in France for 2 years and experienced all the requisite feasts of fat things, I lived in Toronto for 15 years (the mecca of authentic ethnic food), and I’ve traveled all over the world with my globe-trotting husband – but really I only got into cooking in the past few years. It just suddenly blossomed for me. The ironic thing is that living in China means my kitchen is literally the size of a closet, and my kitchen appliances are limited to a single induction hot plate, a rice cooker, and a toaster oven. Literally.
I’m excited to be cooking in a full size kitchen. Yes, we live in an apartment and we’re a little short of counter space, but it sure beats my little induction hot plate in China! The only problem is, now I’m starting to really miss cheap good Chinese food.
I do some freelance writing as well, writing travel articles and stories for various websites. Follow me as I blog on frugal living at Wisebread.com, as well as health and nutrition at HealthyTheory.com.
Contacting Me
You can contact me at foodrepublik [at] gmail [dot] com, or leave a comment on the post you are interested in.
Hello Camilla,
I’m dying to make your upsidedown plum cake, but would like to know the approx. weight of your Chinese block of butter. I live in Aust. with grams, but can convert oz.
Regards, Diane
hi Diane. I think the blocks we get are about 227g. I believe that the amount of butter called for in that recipe is about 1/4 cup (1 US stick of butter = 1/2 cup). Hope that helps!
Thanks Camilla,
It certainly does. I’ll let you know how it turns out, but I’m sure it will be delicious, even with my cooking!
All the best, Diane
Hi Camilla,
I just found your blog from tastespotting and I love your angle. I travel with my “day job” around Asia and am always finding inspiration, like you, in my travels. Your food looks gorgeous and I am excited to read more of your blog and try some of these recipes. Great blog.
Your blog is really nice, pictures are so cool.
Just a question, do you really cook all from only a single induction hot plate??
It is surreal! Would you have picture link of your kitchen work plan?
I really do. It’s not as difficult as it seems. But actually we’re in the process of moving back to the States, so I don’t have a pic handy right now. Maybe I’ll post one on Flickr later!
you mean you saw the foodcourt FOOD REPUBLIC and got the idea from there….right?
Um, no. We did see the food court later and realize we had picked (almost) the same name, but we were not inspired by it. I would never deliberately copy a name.
Hey Cam
Your recipes and photos never fail to make me really really hungry. Hope all is well. God bless.
Hey Chris and Camilla,
How are you guys doing?? It’s me, Ed from Xiamen!
Great website you got here, very informative and it’s great you two found a way to mix the things you like together!
Hi Ed, great to hear from you! what have you been up to? Are you still in Xiamen?
Yeah, still in Xiamen.. the 2nd semester is almost over. Some of the teachers will be leaving soon, including Merryl. Please do say hi to Chris for me. I also want to share some of the photos I took with you guys though most of them are car related stuff. Haha..
http://ecwrides.com/node/239 (sorry for the plug).
Hope you guys are doing great back there.
Just found out about your blog when I was googling “how to sell food photos”. I’m glad to find another Canadian fellow here